


a song of light, and pierces air

by dastardlyenables



Series: 30 Minute Power Hour [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Breath of the Wild, Ghosts, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dastardlyenables/pseuds/dastardlyenables
Summary: A breeze ruffles through his hair, like a friendly hand and familiar laughter, and Cloud closes his eyes and tilts his head back, humming an affirmative.  His lips curve up into a soft smile, and he leans back against the sun-warmed stone of the old, weathered goddess statue-shrine.  There’s a pond not too far off, where if one was lucky one could usually find a salmon or two, and the quiet burbling of the stream that leads to it  blends so nicely with the faint smell of cool lavender.  With his eyes shut, Cloud can hear the faint sound of boots scuffing against the rocks and displaced sparse greenery, followed by the creak of leather, the soft susurrus of fabric rubbing together as someone sits down beside him.Spring has come to Gaia, and with it, something reclaimed new.
Relationships: Cid Highwind/Vincent Valentine, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Series: 30 Minute Power Hour [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658377
Comments: 3
Kudos: 65





	a song of light, and pierces air

**Author's Note:**

> Gift for Ambroise for the ff7 floral exchange on the rarepair hell, inc Discord.
> 
> Title taken from "The Lark Ascending" by George Meredith

It’s quiet. A lot of the other travelers Cloud has encountered so far have called it mournful—and it is that, some days, passing by the ruins of desolate towns settlements, swallowed by time and inhabited by monsters—but mostly he just finds it… peaceful.

“World’s changed a lot since I was here, huh Spike?”

A breeze ruffles through his hair, like a friendly hand and familiar laughter, and Cloud closes his eyes and tilts his head back, humming an affirmative. His lips curve up into a soft smile, and he leans back against the sun-warmed stone of the old, weathered goddess statue-shrine. There’s a pond not too far off, where if one was lucky one could usually find a salmon or two, and the quiet burbling of the stream that leads to it blends so nicely with the faint smell of cool lavender. With his eyes shut, Cloud can hear the faint sound of boots scuffing against the rocks and displaced sparse greenery, followed by the creak of leather, the soft susurrus of fabric rubbing together as someone sits down beside him.

“Kinda peaceful, though. I like it.”

Cloud cracks an eye open, just enough to see the faint wisps of turquoise spirit fire in the corners of his periphery, before yawning dramatically and stretching out all his limbs, slowly, to hide his grin.

“Peaceful? You?” Cloud makes a show of settling back further against the statue, “I thought you considered this sort of thing a dead snore.” Cloud pauses just enough to favor the immediate squawk of protest before carrying on. “You must be really bored, if you’ve come down to start watching me take naps in the sunshine. Don’t you have a Divine Beast to pilot?” Cloud presses his lips into a thin line to try to keep himself from laughing at the sound of spluttering protests. He must give himself away somehow, though, because he can hear the way pebbles skitter across the ground as a boot digs against the stone on a hard pivot, and the spluttering trails off until…

“Why you little–”

Cloud laughs, loud and free, and abruptly rolls away from the statue and into the grass, eyes still closed, dodging a pounce he knows desperately to expect from a thousand play-fights before. It only takes moments more for him to spring up onto his feet and draw out his knight’s broadsword. He brings it up just in time to brace as it meets an opposing thrust with a loud clang.

Cloud’s eyes fly open, and Zack smirks at him across their blades, blue eyes alight and body wreathed in turquoise flames. Zack draws back his royal broadsword, dragging the edge of their blades along to spit sparks, before swinging around again in a slash that has Cloud flipping backwards to parry. Zack springs back, and Cloud uses that chance to rush in with a flurry of blows that keep Zack moving backwards, bouncing lightly on his toes. Zack springs back to force some space between them, placing his hands on his hips almost in a taunt as he grins.

“Picked up some new tricks, huh. Nice, Spike.”

Cloud drives the blade of his sword into the soft dirt between his feet, and cants his head at Zack, cocky.

"A few,” Cloud rolls his shoulders, casual, before slinging his sword up and across his shoulders in a mimic of Zack’s favorite pose. “You seem out of practice, Zack, must be from twiddling your thumbs for so long."

“Oh, you are _so_ going to eat those words.”

Cloud brings his sword in front of himself quickly to block Zack’s sudden lunge, closing the distance with a speed that would seem unnatural to anyone not well-acquainted with Zack. He still staggers back under the force of the blow, and it leaves him open for the way Zack’s shield slams up against his side to try to knock him down. Cloud stumbles, sliding down the hill, but regains his footing fast to leap back at Zack.

They continue to exchange blows and parries, playfully shouting insults and taunts until Cloud is just a hair too slow with his parry and finds himself tripping over a rock and tumbling down almost to the cliff edge.

By the time Cloud stops rolling, Zack has sheathed his sword, and is offering out his hand, grin wide. Cloud hesitates, hand half-way reaching out but finds himself reluctant to close the distance. Zack cocks an eyebrow, and Cloud sets his shoulders, reaching out the rest of the way to grasp Zack’s hand firmly. His eyes widen in surprise at the strength of the returning grip, but it’s replaced with a soft smile as he uses Zack’s leverage to pull himself up. His hand lingers in Zack’s grip before he lets it fall and steps back to shove both his hands into his pockets, turning his face away to hide how his hands shake, the palms tingling and warm.

Cloud takes those next few steps to the cliff edge, looking out from their spot at the spurs of the Nibel mountains, and over the whole of the continent as the sun sets behind them, casting the sky in beautiful washes of purple, pink, orange, red. If he really strains his eyes, he can make out the ruins of Midgar and the highest turrets of Shinra Castle, swirling with black smoke and acid-green Malice. Zack sits down, one knee bent up and the other dangling over the cliff edge, and looks out, following Cloud’s gaze. He lets out a sigh, weary and a little heartsore, but the lower mood doesn’t last long. By the time Cloud has tilted his head down to look at him, he’s grinning up at Cloud, nudging against Cloud’s thigh with a pointed elbow jab. Zack kicks the side of the cliff and tilts his head down towards the warm orange-gold lights of Rocket Village below. The view makes the village look even more inviting, tucked close against the rock and rising from the center of the lake. Built around the natural stone columns jutting up like fingers reaching towards the sky, from up here Rocket Village could just looks something akin to scattered wish-candles floating on the water.

“Don’t you have someplace to be, Cloud?”

Cloud should really start on his way heading back down from the high peaks if he’s to have any real hope of making it back for supper with Vincent and Cid before it gets unreasonably late, but he finds he doesn’t quite want to leave. So, instead he just grunts, and makes a point of setting his eyes towards Midgar and farther, past the horizon. He can hear as Zack shifts, see the shake of his hair and the spirit-flames that circle it. He doesn’t duck, though, when Zack leans over to wrap an arm around his shoulders and force his head down to grind against his hair with his knuckles, beyond token squirming protests.

“Come on, Spike, I’ll race you down.”

Zack releases him suddenly, and Cloud looks up just in time to see Zack skipping back from the edge, before charging at him as if about to tackle him.

“Zack, don’t you dare–!”

It is too late; Zack’s shoulders duck down to hit him square in the chest, arms gripping around his waist as he sends them both careening over the cliff edge and tumbling into freefall with a leap. Zack hoots and laughs, whooping, delighted, and Cloud can’t suppress his own grin at the feeling of air rushing up against him. He whips up his paraglider as Zack dives down below. Cloud braces as Zack spirals up in a great column of air, spirit fire whipping around them both as the fabric and wood frame of Cloud’s paraglider catches the shift of the wind just right to lift Cloud with the force of Zack’s tempest-gale.

Zack soars alongside him, twisting in lazy loops around Cloud as if he had wings, while Cloud glides carefully down from the high cliffs and across the lake to the towering islands in the center, connected by strings of bridges that stretch from the main road to Rocket Village. He’s about to drop down onto the path when, predictably, Zack gives him a light shove just as his paraglider snaps closed. Cloud tumbles lands feet-first into a small pond, startling the fish, and Zack howls with laughter as a Chillfin Trout flops up and smacks Cloud square in the face. Cloud scrambles to catch it with his hands. At least it might serve as a peace offering to Cid, since unfortunately he can’t slap Zack back in the face with it. It would just phase right through while Zack laughed harder, the like bastard he is.

By the time they make their way into Rocket Village, they’re leaning on each other, staggering with their laughter. They stumble into the open entryway into Cid and Vincent’s roost like that, Cloud almost tripping over the lintel as Zack falls against him. Cid looks up to squint at Cloud, and his brow creases before he harrumphs, cigarette still hanging loose from his mouth, mumbling something about recklessness and drinking out in the wild alone. Vincent stares directly at Zack, though, gaze mild. Zack immediately straightens from where he’s hanging off Cloud, and clears his throat awkwardly, as Cloud settles from his laughter.

Zack steps out of the way, leaning against one of the sturdy framing posts as Cloud heads directly to the cook pot in the center, fiddling with his pack as he goes to grab the trout, as well as some other herbs, and butter. Cid tries to shoo him away from the pot, and he and Cloud get into a lively argument about the best way to cook the fish. Vincent meets Zacks eyes, unerring, and then subtly tilts his head towards the doorway. Zack shakes his head, slowly, and deliberately looks towards Cloud, and then the moon, rising slowly in the distance. Vincent nods, and settles into one of the low-slung sleeping hammocks, and begins to perform slow, careful maintenance on his gauntlet. Zack massages his wrist, idly, and turns his focus back to the arguing cooks.

Eventually, however, Cid and Cloud reach some sort of agreement, settling their dishes down on the small table. Vincent unfolds from where he’s sitting in the hammock and moves to sit at one of the low stools at the table, kicking out to knock a stool in Zack’s direction. Zack stops it with his foot. Cid scrunches his nose, and scratches his head, staring at the stool, before shrugging and settling down at the table himself. Zack pushes off from the post he’d been leaning against to sit in the stool Vincent had offered. Cloud sits last, facing the entryway, and begins to portion the food out to eat.

It’s a lively dinner conversation, and only grows livelier Cloud glances over to Zack and catches him pulling silly faces from his angle farther away from the table, over Cid’s shoulder. Cloud’s lips wrinkle as he tries to suppress his reaction, until Zack at last jolts his neck forward and acts as though he was trying to catch one of the glowing wisps of spirit-fire in his mouth, including a dramatic reenactment of his cheeks puffing up like a bloatfloat and swallowing it down.

Cloud immediately snorts into the mouthful of food he hadn’t finished swallowing, unfortunately one of Cid’s dishes. It starts off a whole tirade over whether or not Cosmo Spice was an appropriate seasoning for fish, along with a hundred and one other playful slights, only made worse by the way every time Cloud glances in Zack’s direction, he’s pulling another face. About halfway through the dinner, Vincent has shifted to make direct eye-contact with Zack the whole time, and Vincent’s stoic, unaffected face just makes Cloud laugh all the harder.

Eventually, dinner and its impassioned arguments are finished, and the limited dishes are all washed and tucked away. Cid and Vincent lean in towards each other, quiet whispers and soft touches, and Cloud turns away to hook up his temporary hammock from the small extension of side grating off their roost. He falls into it quickly and settles to looking out at the stars. Zack perches easily on the railing, one leg up, bent at the knee, and the other hanging down over the outside swinging lazily. He leans back against one of the support posts, crosses his arms behind his head, and looks up at the stars. Cloud can’t help but wrap himself tighter in his blanket, staring at Zack framed by the natural wooden beams against the far-off soft snowy peaks of the Nibel Mountains, sitting low beneath the waning moon. The spirit flames swirling around him almost match the glow of the stars above them in the deep navy sky. He looks otherworldly, like this, and it makes Cloud’s breath catch in his throat along with a swell of emotions that are difficult to separate.

“Beautiful night, huh Spike?” Cloud swallows down all of his thoughts and feelings as Zack turns to look down at him, blue eyes still brighter than the flames that surround him. Zack smiles, soft, before his head shoots back up, following the path of a shooting star out across the mountains. Cloud’s focus doesn’t change.

“Yeah, beautiful.”

Someone a few roosts over starts playing a soft tune on their accordion. It blends in with the breeze whistling through the vaulted fabric roofs of the roosts and the soft rustling of the surrounding pines, weaving into a melody that lulls Cloud easily to sleep.

Zack reaches down with a hand, to brush away a lock of hair from Cloud’s forehead, but his fingers phase right through. The twist of his lips is wry as he leaps down from where he’s perched atop the side railing of the roost. His heavy boots hit the wood soundlessly, and he lifts his head to lock eyes with the current Rocket Town Champion, sitting awake at the cleared table. Cid snores in his hammock, deeply asleep and entirely oblivious. Vincent tilts his head a second time, towards the entryway of the roost, and Zack sighs, but follows Vincent out, easily.

Vincent swirls his cape around him, walking with deliberate purpose. Zack lazily strolls along behind him and reaches out, letting his hand phase through the neighboring roost’s planting boxes. Sprigs of Cool Lavender and Blue Foxglove among other wildflowers, and not a single petal bends under his touch. The few men and women serving on night watch, when they pass, dip their heads to Vincent and walk straight through Zack. Only one of them shivers, the rest don’t even notice him, glowing bright like Luminous Stones—souls of the Lifestream turned solid rock.

They weave their way through the town and then further up, to the outcropping of the Cetra Shrine. Zack turns to his successor, then, and splays his arms wide.

“You were never meant to linger, like this,” Vincent says at last, voice low.

“No, I wasn't.” Zack lets himself fall back against the Shrine, sliding down until he’s seated, legs crossed, hovering inches over the grass. He tilts his head up and watches the sky. “But it's not up to me.” Vincent hums, disapproving, and crosses his arms in a manner that Zack isn’t sure he realizes looks so much like Cid. It makes the corner of Zack’s lips quirk up.

“Then, he needs to let you go.” Vincent’s moves forward to stand at Zack’s side, but doesn’t reach out towards the shrine. Zack shakes his head at Vincent and drags his hand across the blades of grass as light from the moon falls down and hits him. They don’t all bend beneath his hand with the movement, but some of them do.

“I used to think so, but now–” He reaches out towards an errant wildflower, and pinches the stem between two fingers, lifting the flower up and holding it out towards his successor as Champion. “Now, I’m not so sure.” Zack shifts to bended knees, crouching, before standing up. “Something’s in the wind, Vincent. Something new.”

Vincent accepts the flower, then makes a show of wrinkling his nose. Zack chuckles. Vincent turns his head away. Zack turns back towards the main spiral of Rocket Town, and steps forward, nudging Vincent’s shoulder as he passes, before coming to a stop.

“Hey, from one Champion to another–” Vincent turns his head to look at Zack, long cape swaying lightly. “–reach for your happiness with both hands, or you’ll lose it.” Vincent’s breath catches, holds. Zack lifts a hand idly and continues on his way.

Vincent watches, silent, as Zack weaves his way back through the village, and looks out once more, across Gaia, before stepping away from the Cetra Shrine and heading back himself. He doesn’t see Zack, bright with his spirit-flames, once he makes it back to the roost, but he doesn’t think on it further. He shakes his head and kicks off his boots before sliding into the hammock next to Cid. Cid shifts, grumbling, then slings a strong arm around Vincent’s waist and curls into him, tucking his head against Vincent’s collarbone and settles back easily into sleep.

Cloud wakes in the morning to the brush of Zack’s lips against his forehead, and Zack’s wry grin. Cloud blinks a few times and Zack jerks his head up towards the top of Rocket Town’s central stone spire, apologetic.

“I’ve got a job to do, Cloud, and so do you.”

Cloud grunts and rolls out of the hammock. His feet thud solidly against the wood flooring of the roost. He fishes around for his boots and gathers the small spread of his items back into his pack while Zack rocks back on his heels in the corner, starting to slide into a series of squats, waiting.

Dawn is just breaking to the far east, and Cid and Vincent still seem to be fast asleep. Cloud only spares them half a glance, before fishing out a few gemstone and materia ores from his pack and thunking them down lightly onto the table.

He heads out, Zack a steady, silent presence at his side, until they reach the Goddess Statue at the entrance of Rocket Town. It sits unassuming, tucked away into its little alcove, festooned with elegant orchids, sprightly daisies, and bright daffodils. A ray of raising sunlight strikes the statue directly as they stand before it, illuminating all the motes of pollen in the air, and the statue seems to hum softly with power. Zack plucks up one of the orchids and tucks it behind Cloud’s ear with a laugh.

“Give ‘em hell, Spike.”

Zack grins, wide, and Cloud reaches out, sudden, to sling. his arm around Zack’s shoulder. He draws them close until their foreheads touch and shuts his eyes against the sight of bright turquoise spirit flame wisping away, as Zack fades from beneath his fingers.

Cloud opens his eyes and Zack is gone. It’s just him and the rising dawn, with the fringes of Rocket Town waking up around them. Cloud sets his shoulders, and aims his sights east towards Midgar, to the Malice-swirled spires of Shinra Castle. He lifts his fingers to brush against the orchid petals for luck. Bravery and power, they say, good look and a reward for a brave warrior.

Rocket Town wakes for the day, and Cloud is gone. Far up above the town, resting on the shoulder of Ancient Technology brought to life, Zack swings his legs off the edge, before hoping up to his feet. The Calamity curling around Shinra Castle _roars_ , acid-green and _angry_ , and Zack’s smile shifts to a bitter smirk, the spirit flames curling about him blazing brightness.

“Showtime.”

(( Cloud heaves the Buster Sword up once more, panting, out at the very reaches of Midgar’s edge, into the wide field and canyon beyond. Sephiroth—or whatever was left of him, after Jenova hollowed him out—fades into bitter ashes. He thinks he can hear Aerith talking to him, but he’s not sure, too exhausted to properly stand.

Cloud blinks, and she’s standing before him, and smiling, and laughing. Aerith’s leans down to meet his eyes and tilt his chin up, until her gaze suddenly shifts over his shoulder and she smirks that knowing little smirk of hers _._ Cloud isn’t sure if he should brace for disaster or cover his eyes and groan. Knowing Aerith, it’s probably both. She blows him a kiss, but before he can even think to muster his tired brain to reply, there’s a firm hand on his shoulder. Beautiful and familiar and painful, too, after their goodbye.

Zack’s grip on his shoulder tightens, and he only has a moment to notice Zack’s bright, bright blue eyes, Silent Princess blue, and the flower crown of Sekkoku Orchids and Silent Princess in his hair—Aerith’s doing, almost definitely—and the way he stands tall, straight, and smiling, as the spirit-flames around him fade away

Cloud blinks again, more rapidly, but Zack’s grip on his shoulder stays. ))


End file.
